Por Siempre
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: AU. Angels aren't supposed to fall in love with humans. If they do, there are dire consequences. Kim/Violette femslash.


**Author's Note: Still screeching about how in episode 20 Violette was with Kim the whole time. Kim even called Violette 'dear' and tousled her hair. So freaking cute x) And this craptastic fic was influenced by Black Vow (Vocaloid). I need to stop listening to music when I play MCL...Bleh. Beware of disjointedness ahead. **

Angels weren't supposed to fall in love with humans. It was as simple as that. They were from two completely different worlds and of two completely different natures. Angels were benevolent divine beings, everlasting in their realm of Heaven, a place of pure warmth and a never fading light where time wasn't so much of a reality as it was a concept that did not apply to them. Angels were not born, they simply were. Humans were corrupt creatures who killed each other and fought in their earthly plane, a place of both good and bad and usually not in equal quantities, where time was important to them because they eventually ran out of it. Humans were born, so they inevitably did the opposite and died.

Kim never understood why not falling in love with humans even had to be a rule. Sure, she didn't mind humans. She actually quite liked them and the mortal world they lived in. She'd even protect them from time to time and bestow them with good luck, as angels often did, but falling in love with one? The idea was just laughable. It was impossible to be in love with someone so vastly different from yourself.

She revoked the idea the very moment she met Violette.

(_I wish I would have kept it_, she told herself later, _oh how I wish I would've kept it_)

The human female was a pathetic sight to behold, the shawl draped over her thin shoulders so sparse it could have been spun of cobwebs, ribs protruding from under the thistle fabric of her tattered grown, cascade of amethyst tumbling over her shoulders in greasy knots and tangles. She sat hunched under a crooked willow tree and lifted her weary head when she heard Kim approach. The prayer for relief was so strong in an otherwise weak voice that asked; "Are you the angel of death?"

"No, I am not," Kim murmured as she crouched in front of the gaunt young woman.

(_Yes_, she would think later, _I should have said yes. I am your angel of death, and I'd give anything not to be!_)

"What ails you?" A wave of astonishment rippled through her as those ash-gray pools met her own. They were haunted and dark with suffering, and yet...and yet...So beautiful. They touched Kim in a way she couldn't describe, stuck with her and etched themselves into her heart. One look from them and she had the fierce desire to help this human with every inch of her being. Those eyes. She realized they would stay with her eternally.

"Starvation," she answered and Kim unfurled her wings, the span of them stretching as long as the length of her body. The human watched them, awe temporarily replacing the dulled agony in her unforgettable gaze. A single loose ivory feather drifted to the dirt and dissolved in glimmering sparkles. A tree sprung from where it had fallen, bark thickening and branches sprouting until it stood ten meters tall. Luscious red apples dotted every branch.

The human stood on shaking legs. Her cracked lips parted in hope and wonder, a rough gasp drawn from them. She wavered as though she were going to fall and Kim wrapped an arm around her bony waist to keep her steady. The angel then reached up and plucked a plump apple, wings folding once more as she held it out to the human.

"For you," she told her with a gentle smile. The human's pale fingers brushed over her dark ones as they took the offering. They were ice cold and all Kim wanted to do was make them warm again. She bit into the fruit deeply, eyes closing as the juice trickled down her chin. She ate ravenously, scarfing down every bite until the barest of cores was left.

"You may have every apple on this tree, if you like, but I think that was enough to satisfy." Kim grinned and unwrapped her arm from the young woman's filled out waist. One magic apple was all it took to fill the human's belly and put back the weight hunger had stolen from her. Her eyes were brighter when they flashed to Kim with bewilderment, no longer shadowed by pain. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome. But tell me, what is your name?"

"Violette," she said, a smile as brilliant as the sun's rays stretching from ear to ear. "What's your name?"

"Kim."

"How can I repay you?"

Kim chuckled. Though never ungrateful, it wasn't often that humans offered her repayment. "You can spend the day with me," she suggested. The previous two (and there had been only two) times a human had wanted to repay her for her kindness, she turned them down. Helping mortals was just something angels did, there wasn't any reward rexpected. But there was just something about Violette that Kim was fond of. She just wanted to be near her, talk to her for a bit.

Violette blinked, looking quite mystified as though she'd expected something entirely different. "Alright. That sounds nice."

And it was nice. They walked alongside the river and conversed under the trees. Kim learned that Violette was on her own, a survivor of a village torn by war who had no family or home to go back to. Kim took it upon herself to escort her to a new town, wanting to make sure she wouldn't be harmed on the journey. And so spending the day with Violette turned into spending a month with Violette, where they shared their first kiss on the peaceful outskirts of a town called Sucreville. Violette's soft pink lips were smooth and wet against the angel's, tasting as sweet and fresh as the apple that saved her life.

They lived there together for a year, and it was the longest romance they would ever have, even though they would later have many more.

(_I should've never stolen that year from you_, Kim lamented endlessly after the fact, _I should have left right after I saved you!_)

Kim was alone in their cabin, sketching out a picture of a unicorn and using her own feather as pen. Sketching was one thing Violette bested her in, but she still liked to dabble in it. Especially since Violette was just as skilled in painting as she was in sketching and would gladly brush over the sketches in brilliant strokes of paint. She was dipping her feather into the inkwell to get more ink for the unicorn's mane, when the icy voice hissed from behind and froze her in mid-motion.

"You are not allowed to fall in love with a human."

Kim snapped up to a stand and whirled around, a gasp of shock and dread catching in her throat. Agatha, the goddess of love, stood before her with a firm scowl, her magenta orbs narrowed to dangerous slits. "I-I-"

"You are breaking the rules," venomously spat the goddess. "Did you honestly think you wouldn't get caught!?"

In spite of her dread, Kim surged forward and balled her fists up in fury. "Why can't Violette and I be together!? She loves me just as much as I love her, and we aren't hurting anyone!"

"Foolish angel," Agatha roared, slapping Kim across the face with a sound like the crack of a whip. "She is mortal! You are not! You live on an entirely different plane than her. You may bide your time here, but you do not belong to this world! Your elongated presence here effects things! Don't you realize that? Time slows by minutes, greenery grows in the dead of winter! And it will get more unnatural the longer you stay here with her."

"I don't care!"

"You...Don't care?" The goddess's voice dropped to a frigid murmur. It put Kim at unease more than the yelling had. "I was going to punish you lightly for this crime, but now you leave me no choice." She lunged at Kim and seized her by her wings, gripping them so tightly that she broke them. Kim's scream of torture was even louder than the sickening crunch of bone, and the sound that followed those two things was even more horrifying. Agatha yanked with all the strength her arms possessed, pulling the angel's wings right out of her back. Flesh tore apart in meaty rips and left ragged twin holes between her shoulder blades.

"Kim!" Violette screeched, returning home and opening the door just as the wingless angel fell forward. She dropped the basket of groceries she held, jars breaking and fruit rolling across the floor. She raced forward and dropped to her knees beside her lover. She didn't heed Agatha, she was too fixed upon Kim. She never noticed when the goddess of love picked up one of the wings she'd so brutally torn off. Amaranth flames flickered from Agatha's palms and licked up the torn appendage, burning all the feathers and muscles away so that only the bone was left behind.

The goddess jerked one sharp, burnt bone free of the rest of the skeletal remains and impaled Violette from behind, straight through the heart. Kim saw her mouth drop. She saw her gloved hand tremble and twitch toward her bleeding chest. She saw that chest go still. She saw the light fade from the beautiful ash-gray orbs that had forever captured her heart. She saw Violette pitch over next to her, no longer her lover but an empty corpse.

"VIOLETTE!" Kim caterwauled her name so loud her throat went raw. The fallen angel sat up and ignored the blood that flooded from her defaced back. She cradled Violette's body as it grew cold, sobbing freely into the long amethyst hair that lost its sheen.

Agatha turned briskly on her heel and walked away from the scene, stepping on one of the apples that rolled from the grocery basket. It smashed under her foot, spewing juice and chunky mush over the bloodied hardwood floor.

* * *

Kim was still immortal. She no longer had wings or magic to carry her to Heaven, but she never aged as the world around her did. She wandered from place to place, never staying in one permanently. Agatha was right. She didn't belong to this world.

She was on a hill when she met Violette for the second time. The spring air was lovely and she'd come to enjoy it, to lean into it and let it blow back her short ebony tresses and make her feel a just a little bit lighter until it gusted by. There wasn't much she enjoyed in this world anymore, when Violette died so had its spark, but there was a touch of solace to be found in the renewal of seasons.

A tug on her sleeve brought her out of her reprieve. She wearily turned, heart jolting in her chest and mouth falling open when haunting ash-gray eyes twinkled at her.

"Excuse me, Miss. I hope you don't mind, but I painted you. You looked so pretty standing up here with the wind through your hair that I just couldn't help myself." She smiled at Kim shyly, her voice the same as it had always been.

Kim could only gape at her. This young woman was Violette, no doubt about it. Those eyes, those unforgettable eyes that lingered in her soul were fixed upon her, glittering with life as they had once upon a time.

"Um, Miss?" She took a timid step back.

"I-I'm sorry," Kim managed finally. "It's just that, you look...You look like someone I know."

(_But you were someone I knew, you're always someone I knew_)

Violette smiled again and giggled softly, the tinkling sound that was music to Kim's ears. "It's funny you say that, you actually look familiar to me too. But I hope you don't mind," she repeated, "that I painted you." She held up a canvas and it was evident to Kim that artistic skills had followed Violette into this lifetime as well. Her profile and the scenery were captured perfectly in swirls of brown, black, and green.

"I don't mind," she said quickly, feeling herself smile for the first time in ages. "You're a wonderful painter. What's your name?"

"My name is Violette, and thank you." She beamed under Kim's praise and a blush crept into her pretty cheeks. "And you are?"

"I'm Kim."

A second chance. That's what Kim thought it was, a precious second chance to be with the one she loved. It's what she thought when she and Violette wrote each other letters, when Violette introduced her to her family and showed her all the pictures she'd previously painted (many being of a faceless angel). Her hope for a second chance began to crumble when Violette started coughing.

It died along with Violette, fading from her heart as the light in those feverish gray eyes faded before her for the second time, exactly a month after the day they met.

* * *

The third time she met Violette, she tried not to.

Kim was taking a walk through the countryside, staying out of populated places in an attempt to prevent the introduction she wanted to never happen.

"Get out of the way!" Someone cried out in warning. The thudding hoofbeats of a galloping horse echoed the cry and Kim rapidly leapt off the path and into the undergrowth. A whinnying bay filly sped past the very spot she last stood in, its sable mane and tail flying. The amethyst hair of its rider also flew out on the breeze. Kim's heart dropped into the pits of her stomach.

The filly skidded to a stop, gruffly snorting as its rider pulled on the reins and stepped down from the saddle. "I'm so sorry," she breathed, whipping around to face Kim with those distinctive ash-gray orbs. "Are you okay?"

"I have to go," Kim snapped, pulling herself out of the shrubbery as her insides gave a painful lurch. Tears stung her eyes as she sprinted away from the Violette of this lifetime.

"W-Wait!"

"I can't!"

And then Violette ran after her. It was unlike her to do something like that unless it was of importance, she knew, because Violette had been a passive person in both prior lifetimes and there was no reason that would change now. She felt the smaller woman's fingers curl around her arm and she found she couldn't force herself out of the grasp. Not because she wasn't strong enough to, but because Violette was clutching onto her so desperately.

(_You should let go of me_, Kim thought then and many times after, _Let go because you're doomed if you don't_)

She turned and made herself look into those pleading eyes.

"Sorry for chasing you like that," said Violette, "I just wanted to make sure you weren't hurt."

"I wasn't."

"Oh thank goodness! My name's Violette." She looked a bit bemused after she spoke, seeming confused as to why she was so readily introducing herself to a complete stranger.

"I'm Kim," she told her for the third time and like she would tell her many times after, plastering a friendly smile on her face while she choked back the tears.

She still kept her distance. Didn't attach herself to Violette this time as she had the last one, didn't cling to the hope that this was another shot at romance for them. But she did cling to the hope that Violette would live, so long as Kim stayed away from her. So long as Kim tried not to become her lover, or even her friend, everything would be fine.

A month to the day after their meeting, Kim was trekking down another scarcely used path, going nowhere. She heard a an ear-piercing shriek of fear so familiar it stopped her cold, and the strangled neighs of a horse that rang in her ears. A crunch even more nauseating than the one that followed when Agatha broke her wings silenced the other sounds.

She raced towards the source of it, crying Violette's name out because she knew. She found her laying broken on the path, thrown from her horse with blood bubbling past her lips. The panicked animal had stomped and left the imprint of its hoof in Violette's head, blood and brain matter and chips of fractured skull tangled up in her hair. Kim kneeled beside her and held her hand, helplessly watching the light vanish from those eyes yet again.

* * *

It happened every single time. They always found each other. They were soul mates, forever bound to each other even though they shouldn't be. It didn't matter if Kim tried to ignore her, Violette would seek her out. And once she did, she couldn't ignore Violette anyway. She couldn't bear to disregard the mortal who meant everything, even if only tragedy ever arose when they were with one another.

One forever walked the earth and one forever reincarnated, dying before she reached her twentieth birthday.

This was their punishment. This was their fate.

This was the hell they shared for breaking the rules.

"Stop it, Agatha!" Kim sobbed so many times when she was alone. So many times after she looked into those mesmerizing ash-gray eyes, so oblivious to what destiny they were resigned to, but so ceaselessly full of kindness for her. "Let her live! Just once, could you let her grow old? Don't make me watch her lose her light again!"

But if Agatha heard, she never listened.

* * *

Though no longer a new invention, cars were popular for the very first time and constantly zipping down the streets. Nearly every person had them and Kim supposed she was odd for not having one.

She had one foot extended into the street, about to walk right into the traffic. Perhaps it was subconsciously on purpose, even though it wouldn't kill her. But the fluorescent yellow car didn't hit. A gloved hand grabbed hers and yanked her back from the detrimental decision.

(_Gloves. All these years later, all these realties later and you still like gloves_)

"Watch out!"

"Thank you," Kim breathed though her chest was tightening and a lump was forming in her throat. Meeting her never got any easier. No matter how many times she did it, it never ever got the slightest bit easier to handle.

"You have to be careful, you know," Violette warned gently and Kim finally looked her in the eyes. This time, Violette's hair was a lot shorter. It only went down to her neck. But long or short, it was still beautiful. The most beautiful hair Kim had ever seen.

"I guess I had my head in the clouds," she smiled genuinely. As tormented as she was to be in this situation again, Violette's concern never ceased to touch her heart.

(_You still love me. You'll always love me, even if sometimes you don't realize that you do_)

"Would you like to join me for some coffee?"

"That sounds nice," Kim said and they drank coffee together and reintroduced themselves once more. This time, Violette was in her nearby high school's drama club. Kim was impressed, as it seemed some of Violette's shyer tenancies were left out of this lifetime. And then Violette went on to explain that she didn't act, just wrote scripts and designed the background sets and promotional posters. Kim laughed softly, told her that was wonderful and managed to savor the meeting with her former lover even though sorrow hung over it like clouds before a storm.

Violette gave her a ticket to the next play the school was putting on.

The date on the ticket killed the little bit of joy left in Kim. The date was exactly a month from the day.

"You'll come won't you?" Violette asked, gazing at Kim with glimmering, buoyant eyes. So eager to have a complete stranger come and see her accomplishments and not having the slightest inkling why.

"Of course I will," she assured her and bit back the tears. And she did.

This time it was a fire that took Violette, a result of frayed wiring that proved to be an electrical hazard no teacher bothered checking. The beautiful background sets she'd painted so intricately were swallowed up by hungry orange flames. The flames traveled up the curtains and rose to the ceiling, buffeting against rafters and cloaking the room in smoke. It was so thick and dark it was nearly impossible to see through. Nearly. Unfortunately not blinding enough to prevent Kim from seeing the light leave Violette's eyes as she fought for oxygen and found none. Her final, choked words had been; "I love you."

* * *

She was a poet the next time Kim saw her.

Kim was at a local festival in town, celebrating some bank holiday or another that she did not care to remember. There was a band playing in the square and she stood in the crowd to listen, rather liking the soft rock and swaying her body to its ambiance.

"They're good, huh?" A quiet, bashful voice murmured next to her when the band was taking a break. The lovely voice that never changed, even though so much else had.

Kim glanced to Violette and spared a wary smile like she'd grown accustomed to as she nodded. "Yeah, they are."

"My boyfriend's the singer," Violette told her with carnations blossoming in her cheeks.

A boyfriend? That was new. Of all the times they'd met before, Violette (Or Vincent, it was, the two or three times she'd been reincarnated as a male) had always been single. Half the time they would begin a relationship with each other before it ended the same way it always did. Kim felt a lone needle of jealously prick her heart, but it was insignificant compared to the tidal wave of happiness she felt for Violette.

Violette had found someone else to love. Someone who couldn't hurt her like Kim did, and that was fantastic. Perhaps, just perhaps,

(_I never hope. I can't bear optimism anymore_)

this meant the endless cycle of heartbreak between them would finally end.

"Your boyfriend's a pretty good singer then." Kim flashed her a radiant grin. "What's his name?"

"Lysander. And mine is Violette." And then Violette went on to tell her all about Lysander, how half the songs he wrote were his own and the other half she'd written for him. How he had a tattoo of hybrid wings on his back, and Violette knew that meant he was the one for her because she'd dreamed of someone with wings as long as she could remember. She called Lysander her guardian angel. Kim felt just a little bit like crying.

In addition to song lyrics, Violette wrote various poetry. Most were free verse but occasionally she wrote nonsensical limericks and there was even an epic or two in progress. Kim was going to ask if she could read them sometime, when the band began the next set.

She asked Violette to dance instead.

They did dance, danced the night away with their hips swinging and bodies brushing until the festival was over and they were both glistening with perspiration. They swapped phone numbers and became fast friends.

As predicated, their companionship perished one month after they met each other. This time a mugger Kim failed to protect Violette from took her purse and slashed her throat from ear to ear. Kim tried as hard as she could to stop the bleeding, she always tried no matter how many times this scenario occurred. No matter how many times Violette would fall in front of her, Kim always did her best to save her and never succeeded. She pressed her jacket against the wound and shouted for help, but once more the light fled Violette's eyes.

It always did. And Kim always broke down in renewed sobs.

* * *

Kim sits comfortably in the seat of a subway, headed for a city called Magnolia County and not really knowing why.

A girl with braided amethyst hair claims the seat next to her and the sense of déjà vu tingles under her skin.

"Where are you headed?" Violette asks as she fixes her stunning ash-gray eyes on Kim's tired lime ones.

_Nowhere_, she thinks but doesn't say. "Magnolia County."

"Really? Me too." She graces Kim with that smile, the most delightful smile the world has ever known.

"I hear it's a good place to be," Kim tells her and swallows in a futile attempt to get rid of the lump in her throat.

"Me too. My name's Violette, by the way. What's yours?"

"Kim," she says, like she's said over a hundred times before.

"It's nice to meet you," Violette replies and extends her gloved hand.

_No it's not_, she thinks, but cannot say. She merely smiles and shakes Violette's hand, trying to focus on the now instead of the harrowing knowledge of what will come.


End file.
